Phew. 2018 was a doozy. Bought a house, traveled a ton, started a band, wrote some songs, drank some beers, tried not to lose the plot in the face of impending doom and the tidal wave of ignorance that is Trump’s America. But, true to form, here I am - hat in hand - telling you that the dog ate my homework and I had to redo it from scratch. Thanks for the extension.

Without further ado, my

FAVORITE RECORDS OF 2018:

James Booker - The Lost Paramount Tapes - For as long as I can remember I’ve been avidly digging into New Orleans blues and jazz. From Preservation Hall to Dr. John, something about the music of the Crescent City just grabs me in a way I can’t explain. A couple years back I discovered the late, great James Booker. The one-eyed, afro-sporting, openly gay junkie who taught Harry Connick, Jr. how to play the piano. How’s that for a tombstone? While this record was released on CD in the 90s, I’m including it here because more James Booker vinyl in the universe has got to be a talisman against evil. A-men, jock-a-mo.

Panopticon

The Scars of Man on a Once Nameless Wilderness

One man black metal? Yep. Misanthropic desire to leave humanity and hang out with trees and birds? You know it. Austin Lunn aka Panopticon drew me in out the gate with his 2012 record “Kentucky” that blended of bluegrass, union ballads and crushing black metal into something elemental that spoke to the pain of a ravaged land and a ravaged people. Since then, Lunn moved to rural Minnesota, started a brewery and put out a couple more truly excellent, if more traditional black metal records. Scars of Man is a return to the blend of trad instruments and black metal that initially intrigued me so much plus it’s about hiking through the forests of the North Country so you know I’m about it.

Let me get out in front of it. Fuck Kanye West. Fuck MAGA. Fuck out of touch rich people. Ok. Now that that’s out of the way, let me say that this Pusha T record slays. Whatever Kanye got up to behind the boards on this record is some of the best stuff he’s put out in years. Dusty funk and soul drops in and out between grimy, sparse bass. Pusha has been one of my favorite rappers since I took a flyer on Hell Hath No Fury in college and discovered Pusha and his brother Malice’s deep lyricism and subtly complex flow in the Clipse. Pusha’s always been a pissed off rapper and Daytona is a pissed off record - Pusha’s teeth have never been more sharp.

Yeah, yeah. Blackgaze. This record slays. Surprisingly aggressive for major-key space riffing. Surprisingly straightforward for a post-whatever type band. No clean singing. No meandering. Just some pretty kick ass riffs. And if that’s wrong, brother, I ain’t right. Møl did an instrumental version of this record as well and it was one of my favorite records to work to in 2018.

Tense, pissed off, spare, British post punk with a hint of triumph. That’s my shit right there. “Love yourself, love yourself, love yourself, love yourself.” A baptism by fire for the 21st century when we need to be screaming about love, living and coming together in the real world.

Beyond the fact that this was definitely my favorite guitar soli record of the year by a long shot (and Glenn Jones put out a record this year so that’s saying something) I’ve always really loved Nathan Salsburg’s entire approach to the music he plays . He’s a researcher for Alan Lomax’s Association for Cultural Equity, digging deep in to the roots and offshoots of American music. That profound understanding of what came before lends hints of everything from Irish hornpipes to klezmer to Piedmont blues to his deft and masterful guitar work. In an era when we could be tempted to destroy what came before in the name of progress or to rest on skewed visions of the world from a time when we as a people knew less about eachother, it’s never been more important to learn from the past and build for the future. Salsburg’s work does just that in the most elegant way possible.

daughters+cover.jpg — Daughters

You Won’t Get What You Want

Some of my favorite records are ones I’ve had to work for. TV on the Radio’s “Return to Cookie Mountain”, the first time I listened to Charlie Parker, there was something there that said, “You don’t get this yet, but it will be worth it when you do.” Early Daughters records hit a sweet spot of grindcore/powerviolence for me when I was a pissed off kid looking for explosions, but this record is something else entirely. No chugs, no screams, no blast beats to speak of. And yet, from the first listen I knew I was going to put in some work untangling this record. After a few listens through I started to discover the beauty in how they play with tension. Drawn out, anxious, repetitive riffs bubble like lava underneath snarling screeds and occasionally give way to almost melodic elements before pulling you back down into the maelstrom. Every moment is like a raw nerve, a reflection of a society constantly searching for something appalling to serve up to the hungry masses for an unending stream of clicks. Where Salsburg’s record proposes a bucolic possible way forward, Daughters hold the mirror up to the ugly face of modern reality and peel our eyelids back, saying, “Look, this is what we have become.”

Snares Like a Haitcut.jpg — No Age

Snares Like a Haircut

Every year there’s that one record that comes out early on and by the time the year-end lists roll around you think, “Damn, did that record even come out this year or was that last year?” Add to that the fact that phenomenologically speaking this may have actually been the longest year in recorded history with a political scandal, school shooting or sex scandal blossoming and dying like angry waves every time we turn our heads. It’s telling, then, that I’m still giving the new No Age record spins every couple of weeks despite the fact that it came out in mid January (aka at least three lifetimes ago) and it still sounds as fresh, creative and catchy as it did when I first heard it. I really started digging into this record deeper once I started playing in a two piece, their arrangements and the way they play with space while still pumping out loud, hooky noise rock is second to none.

Drudkh-They-often-see-dreams-about-the-spring-12-Vinyl_3687.jpg — Drudkh

They Often See Dreams About the Spring

Black metal has always been a sticky wicket for me. Sonically - it appeals to my soft spots for aggressive riffs and droning passages, structurally - I love long, drawn-out riff-worship and “bands” consisting of one or two members, even lyrically - songs about myths of old, protecting the wild country and historic kings and battles is right up my alley. But then there’s the elephant in the room. A whole fucking shitload of black metal artists are nazis. It’s a thing. On top of that, a whole fucking shitload of those nazis are writing lyrics that surface as unintelligible screams, often in languages I don’t understand. And I categorically do not fuck with nazis.

Ukrainian black metal stalwarts Drudkh have never given a proper interview. Hell, they’ve never even played a live show. While their use of poems by Ukranian nationalist writers, Taras Shevchenko and Stepan Bandera, has given some people pause (and, admittedly, my understanding of early 20th century Slavonic politics is nonexistent, in a cursory google, though Bandera was both allied with the Nazis for a time and also was sent to a concentration camp before being murdered by the KGB so it seems like there’s a lot to unpack there). In a statement released by their label, however, Drudkh has denounced any political affiliations and specifically called out their antipathy toward “extreme political views” so take that as you will. What I can say for certain is that Drudkh has written a record that combines the mournful with the punishing, the beautiful with the terrible, the atmospheric with the precise. So if anybody wants to smoke a bowl, throw this record on and go down the rabbit hole of pre-soviet Ukraine politics, I’m all ears but until then I’m gonna keep this record spinning.

My Spotify got hacked by French gangsters. Unfortunately not the kind that Gene Hackman was chasing in the French Connection or the ones Alain Delon worked for in Le Samourai, it wasn’t even Michel Poiccard from A Bout de Souffle. No this was just some ding-dongs who really liked listening to the same 50 brand new French rap songs over and over again. Maybe owing to the time difference, I didn’t realize it was happening for months. By the time I figured it out, it was too late. My year-end recap was deluged with pop rap I’ve never heard of. Some semblance of my listening tastes persevered though. Namely almost every damn song off of Tru by Ovlov.

One of my old bands played with Ovlov at the Hexagon Bar in Minneapolis sometime in 2012 or 2013 before they split up. While I really did dig their debut record, “Am”, that I snagged that night, I was blown away by the progress they made by the time they hit “Tru”. A perfect balance of catchy-as-all-hell songwriting with blown out, Dinosaur Jr. fuzz. I’m particularly inspired by Steve Hartlett’s vocal phrasing, lyrics seem to tumble out over noisy riffs and yet, on repeated listens, the vocal melodies play with the guitar and drums in a way that feels so elemental, so lived in that it’s hard to imagine they were ever written, moreso that they were just…there. That, to me, is the mark of a true songwriter. No pun intended.

Honorable Mentions

Super Unison - Stella
Birds in Row - We Already Lost the World
Viagra Boys - Street Worms
Fiddlehead - Springtime and Blind
Jacques Greene - Fever Focus
Marisa Anderson - Cloud Corner
Glenn Jones - The Giant that Ate Itself and Other New Works for 6 & 12 String Guitar

Non 2018 Records I Played the Hell Out Of

Crowning - Funeral Designs
Mogwai - Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will
Three Sounds - Soul Symphony
Cherokee - Cherokee
Lungfish - Artificial Horizon
XO - Heart
Ringo Deathstarr - Colour Trip
Wire - Pink Flag
Jacques Greene - White Ferrari/Can’t Get Close
Super Djata de Bamako - Vol 2

Best Tracks of 2018 for VagabondAppetite.com